Diplomatic history of World War II

President Roosevelt tried to avoid repeating what he saw as Woodrow Wilson's mistakes in World War I.

1941 and 1942

After Pearl Harbor, antiwar sentiment in the United States evaporated overnight; The nation was now united on foreign policy. On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, which responded in kind. Roosevelt and his military advisers implemented a war strategy with the objectives of halting the German advances in the Soviet Union and in North Africa; launching an invasion of western Europe with the aim of crushing Nazi Germany between two fronts; and saving China and defeating Japan. Public opinion, however, gave priority to the destruction of Japan, so American forces were sent chiefly to the Pacific in 1942.^[56]

In the opening weeks of the war, Japan had conquered the Philippines, and the British and Dutch colonies in Southeast Asia, capturing Singapore in February 1942. Furthermore, Japan cut off the overland supply route to China. The United States flew supplies to China "over the hump" (the Himalayan Mountains) at enormous cost, until a road could be opened in 1945.

Roosevelt met with Churchill in late December and planned a broad informal alliance among the US, Britain, China and the Soviet Union. This included Churchill's initial plan to invade North Africa (called

In 1931, Japan took advantage of China's very weak central government in the

The United States was a strong supporter of China after Japan invaded in 1937. Even the isolationists who opposed war in Europe supported a hard-line against Japan. The outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 saw aid flow into the Republic of China, led by Chiang Kai-shek.^[59]

American public sympathy for the Chinese was aroused by reports from missionaries, novelists such as

To augment Chennault's 100 P-40Bs, in May 1941 Washington decided to send 144 Vultee P-48s, 125 P-43s and 66 Lockheed and Douglas medium bombers. The goal was to give China by early 1942, a respectable air force, judged by Far Eastern standards, sufficient to "(a) protect strategic points, (b) permit local army offensive action, (c) permit the bombing of Japanese air bases and supply dumps in China and Indo-China, and the bombing of coastal and river transport, and (d) permit occasional incendiary bombing of Japan."^[65]

Wartime

After the formal declaration of war in December 1941, the US stepped up the flow of aid, but it had to be routed through India and over the Himalayan Mountains because Japan blocked the other routes. Chiang's beleaguered government was now headquartered in remote

Cairo Conference

The Cairo Conference held in Cairo, Egypt, November 23–26, 1943, outlined the Allied position against Japan during World War II and made decisions about postwar Asia. The meeting was attended by President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of the Republic of China. Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin did not attend the conference because his meeting with Chiang could have caused friction between the Soviet Union and Japan.^[68]

Post war

After World War II ended in 1945, the showdown came between the

For the next two years, the USSR supplied Germany with oil and grain. Furthermore, the Kremlin ordered communist parties around the world to denounce the imperialistic war waged by Britain and France against Germany. For example, B. Farnborough says, "During the entire period up to the fall of France the British Communist Party functioned as a propaganda agency for Hitler."^[74]

After he ignored repeated warnings, Stalin was stunned when Hitler invaded in June 1941. Stalin eventually came to terms with Britain and the United States, cemented through a series of summit meetings. The US and Britain supplied war materials through Lend-Lease.^[75] There was some coordination of military action, especially in summer 1944. At war's end it was doubtful whether Stalin would allow free elections in eastern Europe.^[76][77] The central diplomatic issue was future of Allies, and as it turned out this Soviet-Western alliance was not a permanent one.

France

French Republic

The

When Germany had its hands free for an attack in the west, it launched its Blitzkrieg against Denmark and Norway, easily pushing the British out. Then it invaded the Low Countries and tricked Britain and France into sending its best combat units deep into the Netherlands, where they became trapped in the Battle of France in May 1940. The Royal Navy rescued over 300,000 British and French soldiers from Dunkirk, but left behind all the equipment.^[78]

Vichy France

Relationships with Germany

Paris fell to the Germans on 14 June 1940, and the government surrendered in the Armistice of 22 June 1940 with new leader Marshal Philippe Pétain (1856–1951). His Vichy regime was authoritarian, Catholic, paternal and anti-semitic. His charisma and popularity from his heroic role in the First World War strengthened his authority, although he was increasingly too old to pay attention to details. After Germany seized all of Vichy in October 1942, it installed Pierre Laval as its puppet leaving Pétain as a helpless figurehead.^[79]

The armistice included numerous provisions that weakened France, all largely guaranteed by the German policy of keeping 2 million French prisoners of war and workers in Germany as hostages. Vichy France was nominally a neutral country. It never declared war on the Soviet Union or Britain, and was recognized diplomatically by the United States until 1942. Although Vichy France was nominally in control of all of France—apart from Alsace-Lorraine—in practice the Germans controlled three-fifths of the country, including the northern and western coasts, the industrial northeast, and the Paris region. The Petain government relocated to the resort town of in Vichy and controlled the rest. From the start, Germany wanted food, minerals, and industrial productions, as well as volunteers to work in German factories. Vichy was allowed to control its foreign colonies—to the extent it could defend them against the Free French—as well as its fleet, to the extent it could defend it against British naval attacks. In October 1942, Germany took it all over; the Vichy regime became entirely a puppet of the German occupiers.

The small town of Montoire-sur-le-Loir was the scene of two meetings. On October 22, 1940, Pierre Laval met with Hitler to set up a meeting on October 24 between Hitler and Pétain. It ended in a much-publicized handshake between the two, but in fact their discussions had been entirely general and no decisions had been made. Hitler was impressed with Petain's commitment to defending the French Empire. False rumours abounded that France had made major concessions regarding colonies and German control of French ports and the French fleet.^[80] Germany controlled the entire French economy, and demanded huge reparations in gold and food. However nearly 2 million French soldiers became prisoners of war in Germany.^[81] They served as hostages and forced laborers in German factories. Vichy was intensely conservative and anti-communist, but it was practically helpless. Vichy finally collapsed when the Germans fled in summer 1944.^[82] The United States granted Vichy full diplomatic recognition, sending Admiral William D. Leahy to Paris as American ambassador. President Roosevelt hoped to use American influence to encourage those elements in the Vichy government opposed to military collaboration with Germany. Vichy still controlled its overseas colonies and Washington encouraged Vichy to resist German demands such as for air bases in Syria or to move war supplies through French North Africa. The essential American position was that France should take no action not explicitly required by the armistice terms that could adversely affect Allied efforts in the war. When Germany took full control, the US and Canada cut their ties with Vichy.^[83] By 1942, Germany was demanding that Vichy turnover the Jews for deportation to German concentration camps. Reluctantly at first, then more enthusiastically, Vichy complied. They turned over 80,000 of the 330,000 French and foreign Jews living in Vichy; the Germans killed 77,000. When Germany tried to seize the French fleet at Toulon in November, 1942, the French Navy scuttled all its ships.

French fleet

Britain feared that the powerful French Navy could end up in German hands and be used against its own naval forces, which were so vital to maintaining north Atlantic shipping and communications. Under the armistice, France had been allowed to retain the French Navy, the Marine Nationale, under strict conditions. Vichy pledged that the fleet would never fall into the hands of Germany, but refused to send the fleet beyond Germany's reach by sending it to Britain or to far away territories of the French empire such as the

The American position towards Vichy France and Free France was inconsistent. President Roosevelt disliked and distrusted de Gaulle, and agreed with Ambassador Leahy's view that he was an "apprentice dictator".^[84]

North Africa

Preparing for a landing in North Africa in late 1942, the US looked for a top French ally. It turned to Henri Giraud shortly before the landing on 8 November 1942, but he had little local support. By hapstance the Vichy leader Admiral François Darlan was captured and supported the Americans. The Allies, with General Dwight D. Eisenhower in charge, signed a deal with Admiral Darlan on 22 November 1942 in which the Allies recognized Darlan as high commissioner for North Africa and West Africa.^[85] The Allied world was stunned at giving a high command to man who days before had been collaborating with the Nazis; Roosevelt and Churchill supported Eisenhower, for he was following a plan that had been worked out in London and had been approved by Roosevelt and Churchill. Darlan was assassinated on 24 December 1942, so Washington turned again towards Giraud, who was made High Commissioner of French North and West Africa. Giraud failed to build a political base and was displaced by the last man with any standing, de Gaulle.^[86]

Free France

Free France was the insurgent French government based in London and the overseas French colonies and led by charismatic general

When the British and Americans landed in France in June 1944 de Gaulle headed a government in exile based in London, but he continued to create diplomatic problems for the US and Britain. He refused to allow French soldiers to land on D-Day, and insisted that France be treated as a great power by the other Allies, and that he himself was the only representative of France. Churchill, caught between the US and de Gaulle, tried to find a compromise.^[35][36] The US and Britain allowed de Gaulle the honor of being the first to march into Paris at the head of his army after the Germans had fled.^[89]

Axis

The dictators of Germany and Italy, Hitler and Mussolini, had numerous conferences. Neither ever met with top Japanese leaders. The Japanese ambassador to Germany handled many of the negotiations between Germany and Japan, but his coded messages home were intercepted and decrypted by the United States starting in 1941. The US shared them with Britain. They revealed important German plans.^[90]

Germany

Germany's foreign policy during the war involved the creation of friendly governments under direct or indirect control from Berlin. A main goal was obtaining soldiers from the senior allies, such as Italy and Hungary, and millions of workers and ample food supplies from subservient allies such as Vichy France.^[91] By the fall of 1942, there were 24 divisions from Romania on the Eastern Front, 10 from Italy and 10 from Hungary.^[92] When a country was no longer dependable, Germany would assume full control, as it did with France in 1942, Italy in 1943, and Hungary in 1944. Full control allowed the Nazis to achieve their high priority of mass murdering all Jewish population. Although Japan was officially a powerful ally, the relationship was distant and there was little coordination or cooperation, such as Germany's refusal to share the secret formula for making synthetic oil from coal until late in the war.^[93]

DiNardo argues that in Europe Germany's foreign-policy was dysfunctional during the war, as Hitler treated each ally separately, and refused to create any sort of combined staff that would synchronize policies, armaments, and strategies. Italy, Finland, Romania, and Hungary each dealt with Berlin separately, and never coordinated their activities. Germany was reluctant to share its powerful weapons systems, or to train Axis officers. There were some exceptions, such as the close collaboration between the German and Italian forces in North Africa.^[94][95]

Hitler

German policy was not to use or build factories in occupied Eastern Europe but to move millions of workers into German factories and farms.^[97] Some were forced, some went voluntarily (going in search of food), and others were prisoners of war. They were closely watched, had poor food and housing, and were harshly treated. Their morale and levels of output were mediocre or poor.^[98] At the peak the forced labourers comprised 20% of the German work force. Counting deaths and turnover, about 15 million individuals were forced labourers at one point or another during the war. Most came from Poland, the Soviet Union and other Eastern areas; all were repatriated at war's end.^[99][100] Vichy France was one of the few countries that was able to have much influence on German policies, as it tried to protect the nearly two million French soldiers held as POWs inside Germany. Vichy arranged a deal whereby Germany would release one POW for every three Frenchmen who volunteered to work in Germany.^[101]

Threatening Poland

Before coming to power, Hitler on his part denounced the right of Poland to independence writing that

In early 1939 Hitler wanted Poland to join the Anti-Comintern Pact as a junior partner to help with the German invasion of the Soviet Union.^[107] Steiner states that Hitler "wanted to broker an agreement with Colonel Beck, Poland's all-powerful foreign minister, which would bring Danzig and the Polish Corridor back into the Reich but keep Poland as a friend."^[108] Hitler offered Poland a new non-aggression pact and recognition of its current frontiers if it agreed to permit the German-inhabited city of Danzig to return to Germany as well as allow an extraterritorial highway connecting Germany proper with Danzig and East Prussia going through Polish territory. This would mean effectively annexing Polish territory while cutting off Poland from the sea and its main trade route. The Polish administration distrusted Hitler and saw the plan as a threat to Polish sovereignty, practically subordinating Poland to the Axis and the Anti-Comintern Bloc while reducing the country to a state of near-servitude as its entire trade would be dependent on Germany.^{[109] [110]} Robert Coulondre, the French ambassador in Berlin in a dispatch to the Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet wrote on 30 April 1939 that Hitler sought:

a mortgage on Polish foreign policy, while itself retaining complete liberty of action allowing the conclusion of political agreements with other countries. In these circumstances, the new settlement proposed by Germany, which would link the questions of Danzig and of the passage across the Corridor with counterbalancing questions of a political nature, would only serve to aggravate this mortgage and practically subordinate Poland to the Axis and the Anti-Comintern Bloc. Warsaw refused this in order to retain its independence.^[109] By March Hitler had given up on the Poles and in April began planning an invasion.^[111] Hitler's offers are described by Max Domarus as an attempt to buy time before going against Poland.^[112]

Poland had few friends in the international arena.^[113] Two critical developments caught Poland by surprise. At the end of March 1939 Britain and France announced that if Germany invaded Poland they would declare war. In terms of helping Poland militarily in an actual war, everyone realized very little could be done because the British and French military thought that if Germany invaded "Polish resistance would collapse in the early stages of fighting." Neither "was thinking of any major offensive action in the West."^[114] Their hope was that the threat of a two-front war would deter Germany. Hitler believed that Britain and France were bluffing, but he handled the Soviet problem in late August, by an alliance agreement with Stalin, which included secret provisions to partition Poland—and indeed divide up much of eastern Europe.^[115] The British and French offer was not a bluff—they did indeed declare war on Germany when it invaded Poland on 1 September, but neither was in a position to provide serious help.

Poland had a million-man army, but fell far short in terms of leadership, training, and equipment. The Polish military budget was about 2% of Germany's; its commanding general, Marshal Smigly-Rydz was not well prepared for the challenge.^[116] The Soviet Red Army then invaded Poland without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, immediately after the undeclared war between the Soviet Union and the Japan at the Battles of Khalkhin Gol (Nomonhan) in the Far East had ended. Poland was then partitioned between Germany and the Soviet Union.

During the war, Nazi Germany cultivated relationships with fascist and extreme right groups in neutral and Allied-controlled territory such as the Ossewabrandwag, an Afrikaner paramilitary organisation based on the Nazi Party.

The Holocaust

The Holocaust was the

There were numerous prominent individuals in Britain who tried to get the Churchill government to make stopping the Holocaust a priority. That never happened and the government did not publicize the information it did have about ongoing atrocities.[120]

In Washington President Roosevelt, sensitive to the importance of his Jewish constituency, consulted with Jewish leaders. He followed their advice to not emphasize the Holocaust for fear of inciting anti-semitism in the US. Historians argue that after Pearl Harbor:

Roosevelt and his military and diplomatic advisers sought to unite the nation and blunt Nazi propaganda by avoiding the appearance of fighting a war for the Jews. They tolerated no potentially divisive initiatives or any diversion from their campaign to win the war as quickly and decisively as possible. ... Success on the battlefield, Roosevelt and his advisers believed, was the only sure way to save the surviving Jews of Europe.^[121]

Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg used his diplomatic immunity to rescue many of Budapest's Jews by issuing protective passports in 1944. Although these documents had no standing in international law, they did impress those who inspected them and helped about 80,000 Jews escape.^[122][123] Pope Pius XII opposed the Holocaust but the Vatican made only half-hearted ineffective efforts that Berlin easily ignored.^[124]

Turkish diplomat Selahattin Ülkümen, in Rhodes, took advantage of being a neutral country to the war and saved the Jews on the island from genocide by granting them Turkish citizenship. In 1945, when Turkey broke its neutrality against Germany, this consulate building was the first Turkish territory bombed by the Nazis, as if out of a desire for revenge, and the consul's pregnant wife was one of the Turks who died in this attack.^[125]

Italy

Allied policy was to be friendly with Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, in the hopes he would either remain neutral or moderate Hitler's expansion plans.^[126] However, in May 1939, he joined the Axis with Germany, signing the Pact of Steel. When France was in the last stages of collapse Mussolini entered the war and gained some spoils. He brought along a powerful navy that could challenge the British for control of the Mediterranean. Roosevelt denounced the move: "On this 10th day of June, 1940, the hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor."^[127]

Italy was poorly prepared for war and increasingly fell under Nazi dictation.^[128] After initial success in British Somaliland, Egypt, the Balkans (despite the initial defeat against Greece), and eastern fronts, Italian military efforts failed in North and East Africa,^[129] and Germany had to intervene to rescue its neighbor. After the Allies invaded and took Sicily and southern Italy in 1943, the regime collapsed. Mussolini was arrested and the King appointed General Pietro Badoglio as new Prime Minister. They later signed the armistice of Cassibile and banned the Fascist Party. However Germany moved in, with the Fascists' help, occupying Italy north of Naples. German paratroopers rescued Mussolini and Hitler set him up as head of a puppet government the Italian Social Republic, often called the Salò Republic; a civil war resulted. The Germans gave way slowly, for mountainous Italy offered many defensive opportunities.^[130]

Britain by 1944 feared that Italy would become a communist state under Soviet influence. It abandoned its original concept of British hegemony in Italy and substituted for it a policy of support for an independent Italy with a high degree of American influence.^[131]

Balkans

Hitler, preparing to invade the Soviet Union, diverted attention to make sure the southern or Balkan flank was secure. Romania was under heavy pressure, and had to cede 40,000 square miles of territory with 4 million people to the USSR, Hungary and Bulgaria; German troops came in to protect the vital oil fields (Germany's only source of oil besides the USSR). Romania signed the Axis Pact and became a German ally (November 1940).^[132] So too did Hungary (November 1940) and Bulgaria (March, 1941).^[133][134]

Greece

In spring 1939,

Yugoslavia signed on as a German ally in March 1941, but within days an anti-Nazi coup, led by Serbians with British help, overthrew the prince regent, repudiated the Nazis, and installed the 17-year-old heir as King Peter II.^[137]

Germany immediately bombarded the capital

Two major anti-German anti-fascist guerrilla movements emerged, the first in Europe self-organised anti-fascist movement (started in Croatia) partisans led by a Croat Josip Broz Tito had the initial support from the Kremlin. The Chetniks led by the Serbian chetnik Colonel Draža Mihailović was loyal to the royal government in exile based in London. Tito's movement won out in 1945, executed its enemies, and reunited Yugoslavia.^[142]

Japan

Japan had conquered all of Manchuria and most of China by 1939 in the

Japan launched its own blitzkriegs in East Asia. In 1937, the Japanese Army invaded and captured most of the coastal Chinese cities such as Shanghai. Japan took over French Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), British Malaya (Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore) as well as the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). Thailand managed to stay independent by becoming a satellite state of Japan. In December 1941 to May 1942, Japan sank major elements of the American, British and Dutch fleets, captured Hong Kong,^[146] Singapore, the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies, and reached the borders of India and began bombing Australia. Japan suddenly had achieved its goal of ruling the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

Imperial rule

The ideology of Japan's colonial empire, as it expanded dramatically during the war, contained two contradictory impulses. On the one hand, it preached the unity of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, a coalition of Asian races, directed by Japan, against Western imperialism. This approach celebrated the spiritual values of the East in opposition to the "crass" materialism of the West.^[147] In practice, it was a euphemistic title for grabbing land and acquiring essential natural resources.^[148] The Japanese installed organizationally-minded bureaucrats and engineers to run their new empire, and they believed in ideals of efficiency, modernization, and engineering solutions to social problems. It was fascism based on technology, and rejected Western norms of democracy. After 1945, the engineers and bureaucrats took over, and turned the wartime techno-fascism into entrepreneurial management skills.^[149]

The Japanese government established puppet regimes in Manchuria ("Manchukuo") and China; proper; they vanished at the end of the war. The Japanese Army operated ruthless governments in most of the conquered areas, but paid more favorable attention to the Dutch East Indies. The main goal was to obtain oil, but Japan sponsored an Indonesian nationalist movement under Sukarno.^[150] Sukarno finally came to power in the late 1940s after several years of battling the Dutch.^[151] The Dutch destroyed their oil wells but the Japanese reopened them. However most of the tankers taking oil to Japan were sunk by American submarines, so Japan's oil shortage became increasingly acute.^[152]

Puppet states in China

Japan set up puppet regimes in Manchuria ("Manchukuo") and China; proper; they vanished at the end of the war.^[153]

Manchuria, the historic homeland of the Qing dynasty, had an ambiguous character after 1912. It was run by local warlords. The Japanese Army seized control in 1931, and set up a puppet state of Manchukuo in 1932 for the 34,000,000 inhabitants. Other areas were added, and over 800,000 Japanese moved in as administrators. The nominal ruler was Puyi, who as a small child had been the last Emperor of China. He was deposed during the revolution of 1911, and now the Japanese brought him back in a powerless role. Manchukuo was recognized mainly by Axis countries. The United States in 1932 announced the Stimson Doctrine stating that it would never recognize Japanese sovereignty. Japan modernized the economy and operated it as a satellite to the Japanese economy. It was out of range of American bombers, so its factories continued their output to the end. Manchukuo was returned to China in 1945.^[154]

When Japan seized control of China proper in 1937–38, the Japanese

The attack on Pearl Harbor initially appeared to be a major success that knocked out the American battle fleet—but it missed the aircraft carriers that were at sea and ignored vital shore facilities whose destruction could have crippled US Pacific operations. Ultimately, the attack proved a long-term strategic disaster that actually inflicted relatively little significant long-term damage while provoking the United States to seek revenge in an all-out total war in which no terms short of unconditional surrender would be entertained.

However, as Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto warned, Japan's six-month window of military advantage following Pearl Harbor ended with the Imperial Japanese Navy's offensive ability being crippled at the hands of the American Navy in the Battle of Midway. As the war became one of mass production and logistics, the US built a far stronger navy with more numerous warplanes, and a superior communications and logistics system. The Japanese had stretched too far and were unable to supply their forward bases—many soldiers died of starvation. Japan built warplanes in large quantity but the quality plunged, and the performance of poorly trained pilots spiraled downward.^[157] The Imperial Navy lost a series of major battles, from Midway (1942) to the Philippine Sea (1944) and Leyte Gulf (1945), which put American long-range B-29 bombers in range. A series of massive raids burned out much of Tokyo and 64 major industrial cities beginning in March 1945 while Operation Starvation seriously disrupted the nation's vital internal shipping lanes. Regardless of how the war was becoming hopeless, the circle around the Emperor held fast and refused to open negotiations. Finally in August, two atomic bombs and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria demonstrated the cause was futile, and Hirohito authorized a surrender whereby he kept his throne.^[158]

Deaths

Total Japanese military fatalities between 1937 and 1945 were 2.1 million; most came in the last year of the war. Starvation or malnutrition-related illness accounted for roughly 80 percent of Japanese military deaths in the Philippines, and 50 percent of military fatalities in China. The aerial bombing of a total of 65 Japanese cities appears to have taken a minimum of 400,000 and possibly closer to 600,000 civilian lives (over 100,000 in Tokyo alone, over 200,000 in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, and 80,000–150,000 civilian deaths in the battle of Okinawa). Civilian death among settlers who died attempting to return to Japan from Manchuria in the winter of 1945 were probably around 100,000.^[159]

Finland

Finland

The August 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union contained a secret protocol dividing much of eastern Europe and assigning Finland to the Soviet sphere of influence. Finland before 1918 had been a Grand Duchy [162] of Russia, and many Finnish speakers lived in neighboring parts of the Soviet Union. After unsuccessfully attempting to force territorial and other concessions on the Finns, the Soviet Union invaded Finland in November 1939 starting the Winter War. Finland won very wide popular support in Britain and the United States.^[163]

Soviet success in Finland would threaten Germany's iron-ore supplies and offered the prospect of Allied interference in the region. The Soviets overwhelmed the Finnish resistance in the Winter War, and a peace treaty was signed in March 1940. It ceded some Finnish territory to the Soviet Union, including the Karelian Isthmus, containing Finland's second-largest city, Viipuri, and the critical defensive structure of the Mannerheim Line.^[164]

After the Winter War, Finland sought protection and support from the Britain and Sweden without success. Finland drew closer to Germany, first with the intent of enlisting German support as a counterweight to thwart continuing Soviet pressure, and later to help regain lost territories. Finland declared war against the Soviet Union on 25 June 1941 in what is called the "Continuation War" in Finnish historiography.^[165] To meet Stalin's demands, Britain reluctantly declared war on Finland on 6 December 1941, although no other military operations followed. War was never declared between Finland and the United States, though relations were severed between the two countries in 1944 as a result of the Ryti–Ribbentrop Agreement. The arms-length collaboration with Germany stemmed from a precarious balance struck by the Finns in order to avoid antagonizing Britain and the United States. In the end Britain declared war to satisfy the needs of its Soviet policy, but did not engage in combat against Finland. Finland concluded armistice negotiations with the USSR under strong German pressure to continue the war, while British and American acted in accord with their own alliances with the Soviets.^[166]

Finland maintained command of its armed forces and pursued war objectives independently of Germany. Germans and Finns did work closely together during

After Soviet offensives were fought to a standstill, in 1944 Ryti's successor as president, Marshall Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, opened negotiations with the Soviets, which resulted in the Moscow Armistice on 19 September 1944. Under its terms Finland was obliged to remove or intern any remaining German troops on Finnish territory past September 15. This resulted in a military campaign to expel German forces in Lapland in the final months of 1944. Finland signed a peace treaty with the Allied powers in 1947.

Hungary

Hungary was a reluctant ally of Germany in the war.^[168][169] In the 1930s, the Kingdom of Hungary relied on increased trade with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to pull itself out of the Great Depression. Hungarian politics and foreign policy had become more stridently nationalistic by 1938, and Hungary adopted an irredentist policy, attempting to recover control over ethnic Hungarian areas in neighboring countries. Hungary benefited territorially from its relationship with the Axis. Settlements were negotiated regarding territorial disputes with the Czechoslovak Republic, the Slovak Republic and the Kingdom of Romania. In 1940, Hungary signed the Tripartite Pact. The following year, Hungarian forces participated in the invasion of Yugoslavia and the invasion of the Soviet Union. Their participation was noted by German observers for its particular cruelty, with occupied peoples subjected to arbitrary violence. Hungarian volunteers were sometimes referred to as engaging in "murder tourism".^[170]

While waging war against the

Following the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the

After the tide of war turned against Germany Romania was

led a coup d'état that deposed the Antonescu regime and put Romania on the side of the Allies for the remainder of the war; Antonescu was executed in June 1946. Despite this late association with the winning side, Greater Romania was largely dismantled, losing territory to Bulgaria and the Soviet Union, but regaining Northern Transylvania from Hungary.^[175]

Neutrals

The main neutrals were Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.^[176]

The Soviet Union was officially neutral until June 1941 in Europe, and until August 1945 in Asia, when it attacked Japan in cooperation with the US.

Latin America

The US believed, falsely, that Germany had a master plan to subvert and take control of the economy of much of South America. Washington made anti-Nazi activity a high priority in the region. By July 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorized the creation of the

fighter squadron to the war against Japan in 1945.^[180] Brazil declared war against Germany and Italy on 22 August 1942 and sent a 25,700-man infantry force that fought mainly on the Italian Front, from September 1944 to May 1945. Its Navy and Air Force acted in the Atlantic Ocean.^[181]

Argentina

Further information: Argentina during World War II

Argentina hosted a strong, very well-organized pro-Nazi element before the war that was controlled by German ambassadors. Brazil, Chile and Mexico had smaller movements.^[182] American foreign-policy worked to unite all of Latin America in a coalition against Germany. Argentina proved recalcitrant, and the US worked to undermine the Argentine government. The American policy backfired when the military seized power in a coup in 1943. Relationships grew worse to the point that Washington seriously considered economic and diplomatic isolation of Argentina and tried unsuccessfully to keep it out of the United Nations in 1945. Historians now agree that the supposed affinity between Argentina and Germany was greatly exaggerated.^[183]

The Argentine government remained neutral until the last days of the war but quietly tolerated entry of Nazi leaders fleeing Germany, Belgium and Vichy France in 1945. Indeed, a conspiracy theory grew up after the war that greatly exaggerated the Nazi numbers and amount of gold they brought. Historians have shown there was little gold and probably not many Nazis, but the myths live on.^[184][185]

Baltic states

Further information: Occupation of the Baltic states

Despite declaring neutrality the Baltic states were secretly assigned to the

Diplomatic legations

continued to represent the Baltic states throughout the period. The United States never recognized control by Germans or USSR.

Ireland

Further information: Irish neutrality during World War II

Ireland tried to be strictly neutral during the war, and refused to allow Britain to use bases. However it had large sales of exports to Britain, and tens of thousands joined the British armed forces.^[186]

Portugal

Further information: Portugal during World War II

Portugal controlled strategically vital Azores islands in the Atlantic, and Britain and the US made plans called Operation Alacrity to invade them if necessary. Portugal although it had an alliance with Britain was officially neutral; its highest goal was to avoid a German invasion. Its dictator António de Oliveira Salazar collaborated with the British and sold them rubber and tungsten ("wolfram").^[187] In late 1943 he allowed the Allies to establish air bases in the Azores to fight U-boats. He helped Spain avoid German control. Tungsten was a major product, and he sold to Germany; he stopped in June 1944, when the threat of a German invasion of Portugal was no longer possible.^[188][189] He worked to regain control of East Timor after the Japanese seized it.^[190] He admitted several thousand Jewish refugees. Lisbon maintained air connections with Britain and the US. Lisbon was a hotbed of spies and served as the base for the International Red Cross in its distribution of relief supplies to POWs held by Germany. The Quakers and other peace groups used it as a base for their aid to refugees.^[191]

Spain

Further information:

Gibraltar in World War II

Serrano Súñer

in Madrid, October 1940.

Nazi leaders spent much of the war attempting to persuade the

Franco regime to enter the war and allow a German army to march on Gibraltar. The overtures proved futile. Franco was sympathetic but remained emphatically neutral. However, Spain did need to pay off its heavy debt to Germany. Therefore, Franco did provide various kinds of support to Italy and Germany.^[192] It sold Germany supplies, especially wolfram, the hard-to-find tungsten ore. It formed 45,000 volunteers into the Blue Division

, which fought exclusively on the Eastern Front.

Spain was neutral and traded as well with the Allies. Germany had an interest in seizing the key fortress of Gibraltar, but Franco stationed his army at the French border to dissuade Germany from occupying the Iberian Peninsula. Franco displayed pragmatism and his determination to act principally in Spanish interests, in the face of Allied economic pressure, Axis military demands, and Spain's geographic isolation. As the war progressed he became more hard-line toward Germany and more accommodating to the Allies.[193]

Sweden

Further information: Sweden during World War II

At the outbreak of war between Germany and Poland, Britain and France in September 1939, Sweden declared neutrality. At outbreak of war in November between Finland and the Soviet Union, Sweden declared "Non-belligerent" to make it possible to support Finland with arms and volunteers in the Winter War. From 13 December to the end of the war, a national unity government under Prime Minister Per Albin Hansson and Foreign Minister Christian Günther was formed that included all major parties in the Riksdag.

From April 1940 Sweden and Finland was encircled between Nazi Germany and the Soviet union and subject to both British and German

blockades

. In spring-summer 1940 the United States stopped delivery of fighter aircraft to Sweden. Sweden made concessions to both Allies and Germany. It held that that neutrality and cooperation with Germany were necessary for survival, for Germany was vastly more powerful, concessions were limited and were only made where the threat was too great; neutrality was bent but not broken; national unity was paramount; and in any case Sweden had the neutral right to trade with Germany. Germany needed Swedish iron and had nothing to gain—and much iron to lose—by an invasion.^[194]

As a free country, Sweden took in refugees from Finland, Norway, Denmark and the Baltic states. During the last part of the war, it was possible to save some victims from German concentration camps.

Switzerland

Further information: Switzerland during the World Wars

Switzerland was neutral and did business with both sides. It mobilized its army to defend itself against any invasion. The Germans did make plans, but never invaded.^[195] Cut off from the Allies, Swiss trade was mostly with Germany, with Swiss banks a favourite place for Nazis to store their loot. The Swiss depended on German permission to import its food and fuel. Smuggling high precision tools and weapons (such as jewel bearings, diamond dies, and chronographs) to Britain took place on a large scale.^[196] Switzerland became a convenient center for spies and espionage.^[197]

Swiss banks paid Germany 1.3 billion Swiss Francs for gold; Germany used the Francs to buy supplies on the world market. However much of the gold was looted and the Allies warned Switzerland during the war. In 1947 Switzerland paid 250 million francs in exchange for the dropping of claims relating to the Swiss role in the gold transactions.^[198]

Switzerland took in 48,000 refugees during the war, of whom 20,000 were Jewish. They also turned away about 40,000 applicants for refugee status.^[199][200]

Switzerland's role regarding Nazi Germany became highly controversial in the 1990s.^[201] Wylie says, "Switzerland has been widely condemned for its part in the war. It has been accused of abetting genocide, by refusing to offer sanctuary to Hitler's victims, bankrolling the Nazi war economy, and callously profiting from Hitler's murderous actions by seizing the assets of those who perished in the death camps."^[202][203] On the other hand, Churchill told his foreign minister in late 1944:

Of all the neutrals, Switzerland has the great right to distinction. She has been the sole international force linking the hideous-sundered nations and ourselves. What does it matter whether she has been able to give us the commercial advantages we desire or has given too many to the German, to keep herself alive? She has been a democratic state, standing for freedom in self defence among her mountains, and in thought, despite of race, largely on our side.^[204]

Turkey

Further information: History of the Republic of Turkey § Post-Atatürk era (1938–1945)

Turkey was neutral in the war, but signed a treaty with Britain and France in October 1939 that said the Allies would defend Turkey if Germany attacked it. The deal was enhanced with loans of £41 million. An invasion was threatened in 1941 but did not happen and Ankara refused German requests to allow troops to cross its borders into Syria or into the USSR. Germany had been its largest trading partner before the war, and Turkey continued to do business with both sides. It purchased arms from both sides. The Allies tried to stop German purchases of chrome (used in making better steel). Starting in 1942 the Allies provided military aid and pressed for a declaration of war. Turkey's president conferred with Roosevelt and Churchill at the Cairo Conference in November, 1943, and promised to enter the war when it was fully armed. By August 1944, with Germany nearing defeat, Turkey broke off relations. In February 1945, it declared war on Germany and Japan, a symbolic move that allowed Turkey to join the future United Nations. Meanwhile, relations with Moscow worsened, setting stage for the Truman Doctrine of 1947 and the start of the Cold War.^[205]

Governments in exile

Britain welcomed governments in exile to set up their headquarters in London^[206] whilst others were set up in neutral or other allied territory. Recognition for these bodies would vary and change over time.

Poland: in exile and underground

Further information: Polish government-in-exile

wartime allies of the then-United Nations

, 1942

When the Polish forces were demolished by Germany in the first three weeks of September 1939, the government vanished and most Polish leaders fled to Romania, where they were interred. Other leaders escaped to France, and later to London, where the Polish government-in-exile was set up by General Sikorski. It was recognized by the Allies until 1944.^[207][208]

The

Polish Home Army, about 200,000 went into combat on western fronts in units loyal to the Polish government in exile, and about 300,000 fought under Soviet command in the last stages of the war.^[209]

Since the start of the war the body protested on the international stage against the German occupation of their territory and the treatment of their civilian population. In 1940 the Polish Ministry of Information produced a list of those it believed had been murdered by the Nazis. On 10 December 1942, the Polish government-in-exile published a 16-page report addressed to the Allied governments, titled The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland.^{[note 1]} The report contained eight pages of Raczyński's Note, which was sent to foreign ministers of 26 governments who signed the Declaration by United Nations on 1 January 1942.^[210]

Norway

After Germany swept to control in April 1940, the government in exile, including the royal family, was based in London. Politics were suspended and the government coordinated action with the Allies, retained control of a worldwide diplomatic and consular service, and operated the huge Norwegian merchant marine. It organized and supervised the resistance within Norway. One long-term impact was the abandonment of a traditional Scandinavian policy of neutrality; Norway became a founding member of NATO in 1949.^[211] Norway at the start of the war had the world's fourth largest merchant fleet, at 4.8 million tons, including a fifth of the world's oil tankers. The Germans captured about 20% of the fleet but the remainder, about 1000 ships, were taken over by the government. Although half the ships were sunk, the earnings paid the expenses of the government.^[212][213]

Netherlands

The government in 1940 fled to London, where it had command of some colonies as well as the Dutch navy and merchant marine.^[214] When they arrived in London the Government in exile considered itself still neutral but found its desire for the liberation of the Netherlands coinciding with the war aims of the Allies.^[215] After the fall of France the Dutch Prime Minister Dirk Jan de Geer advocated negotiating a separate peace between the Netherlands and the Third Reich. Queen Wilhelmina, fearing that the loss of the Dutch East Indies to Japan would be a term of any treaty, vetoed any agreement. On 3 September 1940 the Queen dismissed her prime minister and replaced him with Pieter Sjoerds Gerbrandy, who worked with Churchill and Roosevelt on ways to smooth the path for an American entry. Aruba together with Curaçao, the then world-class exporting oil refineries, were the main suppliers of refined products to the Allies. Aruba became a British protectorate from 1940 to 1942 and a US protectorate from 1942 to 1945. On November 23, 1941, under an agreement with the Netherlands government-in-exile, the United States occupied Dutch Guiana to protect the bauxite mines.^[216]

Czechoslovakia

The

First Republic of Czechoslovakia

.

Belgium

Further information: Belgium in World War II

The German invasion lasted only 18 days in 1940 before the Belgian army surrendered. The king remained behind, but the government escaped to France and then to England in 1940. Belgium was liberated in late 1944.^[218]

Belgium had two holdings in Africa, the very large colony of the

East African Campaign against the Italians. The colonial Force Publique

also served in other theatres alongside British forces.

Yugoslavia in exile

Further information: World War II in Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia had a weak government in exile based in London that included

National Liberation Army, a communist-controlled resistance headed by Josip Broz Tito. Tito's strength grew in 1943, and Mihailović and the monarchists fell far behind. Churchill reversed course in December 1943, ended his support for the forces of Mihailović, and backed instead Tito. The government in exile followed suite and supported Tito.^[220] Tito drove out the Germans in 1945, repudiated the government in exile, liquidated the Mihailovic forces. This allowed the formation of a communist state of Yugoslavia that was independent of Moscow, with Tito in full control.^[221]

Korea

Based in the Chinese city of

Republic of Korea

was established in 1948.

List of all war declarations and other outbreaks of hostilities

Main article: Declarations of war during World War II

Regarding type of war outbreak (fourth column): A = Attack without a declaration of war, U = State of war emerged through ultimatum, WD = State of war emerged after formal declaration of war, D = Diplomatic breakdown leading to a state of war. In some cases a diplomatic breakdown later led to a state of war. Such cases are mentioned in the comments.

Date	Attacking Nation(s)	Attacked Nation(s)	Type	Comments
1939-09-01	Germany	Poland	A
1939-09-03	United Kingdom, France	Germany	U	See United Kingdom declaration of war on Germany (1939), French declaration of war on Germany (1939)
1939-09-03	Australia, New Zealand	Germany	WD
1939-09-06	South Africa	Germany	WD
1939-09-10	Canada	Germany	WD
1939-09-17	Soviet Union	Poland	A
1939-11-30	Soviet Union	Finland	A	Diplomatic breakdown day before
1940-04-09	Germany	Denmark, Norway	A
1940-05-15	Germany	Belgium, Netherlands	WD	The German offensive in western Europe
1940-06-10	Italy	France, United Kingdom	WD	At a time when France already was about to fall
1940-06-10	Canada	Italy	WD
1940-06-11	South Africa, Australia, New Zealand	Italy	WD
1940-06-12	Egypt	Italy	D
1940-07-04	United Kingdom	France*	A	Vichy France Navy and colonies were attacked by UK, but no war was declared
1940-10-28	Italy	Greece	U
1941-04-06	Germany	Greece	WD
1941-04-06	Germany, Bulgaria	Yugoslavia	A
1941-04-06	Italy	Yugoslavia	WD
1941-04-23	Greece	Bulgaria	D
1941-06-22	Germany*, Italy, Romania	Soviet Union	WD	*The German declaration of war was given at the time of the attack[222]
1941-06-24	Denmark	Soviet Union	D	Denmark was occupied by Germany
1941-06-25	Finland	Soviet Union	A	Second war between these nations
1941-06-27	Hungary	Soviet Union	D	Diplomatic breakdown 1941-06-24
1941-06-30	France	Soviet Union	D
1941-12-07	United Kingdom	Romania, Hungary, Finland	U	Diplomatic breakdowns 1941-02-11,1941-04-07 and 1941-08-01
1941-12-07	Japan	Thailand, British Empire, United States	A	WD came the day after
1941-12-08	Japan	United States, British Empire	WD	See Japanese declaration of war on the United States and the British Empire
1941-12-08	United Kingdom	Japan	WD	See United Kingdom declaration of war on Japan
1941-12-08	United States	Japan	WD	See United States declaration of war on Japan
1941-12-08	Canada, the Netherlands, South Africa	Japan	WD
1941-12-09	China	Germany*, Italy*, Japan	WD	*Diplomatic breakdown 1941-07-02
1941-12-09	Australia, New Zealand	Japan	WD
1941-12-11	Germany, Italy	United States	WD	See German declaration of war against the United States and Italian declaration of war on the United States
1941-12-11	United States	Germany, Italy	WD	See United States declaration of war upon Italy
1941-12-12	Romania	United States	WD
1941-12-13	Bulgaria	United Kingdom, United States	WD
1941-12-15	Hungary	United States	WD
1942-01-24	United States	Denmark	D
1942-05-28	Mexico	Germany, Italy, Japan	WD	Diplomatic breakdowns in all three cases 1941
1942-08-22	Brazil	Germany, Italy	WD	Diplomatic breakdowns 1942-01-20 and 1942-01-28
1942-11-09	France	United States	D
1943-01-20	Chile	Germany, Japan, Italy	D
1943-09-09	Iran	Germany	WD	Diplomatic breakdown in 1941
1943-10-13	Italy	Germany	WD	After the fall of Mussolini, Italy changed side
1944-01-10	Argentina	Germany, Japan	D
1944-06-30	United States	Finland	D
1944-08-04	Turkey	Germany	D	Turkey declared war on Germany on 23 Feb. 1945; a state of war against Germany existed from this date
1944-08-23	Romania	Germany	WD	Like Italy, Romania also changed side.
1944-09-05	Soviet Union	Bulgaria	WD
1944-09-07	Bulgaria	Germany	D
1945-02-24	Egypt	Germany*, Japan	WD	*Diplomatic breakdown already 1939
1945	Argentina, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, Uruguay, Syria, and Saudi Arabia	Germany	WD	Needed a declaration to be eligible to join United Nations
1945-04-03	Finland	Germany	WD	Diplomatic breakdown in 1944, last outbreak in Europe
1945-07-06	Brazil	Japan	WD
1945-07-17	Italy	Japan	WD
1945-08-08	Soviet Union	Japan	WD	Last outbreak of war during the Second World War

Main source: Swedish encyklopedia "Bonniers Lexikon" 15 volumes from the 1960s, article "Andra Världskriget" ("The Second World War"), volume 1 of 15, table in columns 461–462. (Each page are in two columns, numbering of columns only)

See also

• Causes of World War II
• Cold War
• Diplomatic history of World War I
• European foreign policy of the Neville Chamberlain government
• Foreign policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration
• Germany–Soviet Union relations before 1941
• International relations (1919–1939)
• Military production during World War II

Notes

1. ^ See: Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (10 December 1942), The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland, note to the governments of the United Nations.

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128. ^ MacGregor Knox, Common Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy, and War in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany (2000)
129. ^ H. James Burgwyn, Empire on the Adriatic: Mussolini's Conquest of Yugoslavia, 1941–1943 (2005)
130. ^ D. Mack Smith, Modern Italy: A Political History (1997)
131. ^ Moshe Gat, "The Soviet Factor in British Policy towards Italy, 1943–1945", Historian (1988) 50#4 pp 535–557
132. ^ Dennis Deletant, Hitler's Forgotten Ally: Ion Antonescu and his Regime, Romania, 1940–1944 (2006)
133. ^ Joseph Held, ed. The Columbia History of Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (1992)
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136. ^ Mark Mazower, Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44 (2001).
137. ^ John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country (2nd ed. 2000) pp 201–232.
138. ^ Steven Pavlowitch, Hitler's New Disorder: The Second World War in Yugoslavia (2008) excerpt and text search Archived 2017-01-13 at the Wayback Machine
139. ^ Tomislav Dulić, "Mass killing in the Independent State of Croatia, 1941–1945: a case for comparative research", Journal of Genocide Research 8.3 (2006): 255–281.
140. ^ "Croatia" (PDF). Shoah Resource Center – Yad Vashem. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 August 2019. Retrieved 23 June 2013.
141. ^ Paul Bookbinder, "A Bloody Tradition: Ethnic Cleansing in World War II Yugoslavia", New England Journal of Public Policy 19#2 (2005): 8+ online Archived 2018-03-12 at the Wayback Machine.
142. ^ Walter R. Roberts, Tito, Mihailović, and the allies, 1941–1945 (1987).
143. ^ Herbert Feis, China Tangle: The American Effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Mission (1953) contents^{[permanent dead link]}
144. ^ Dorothy Borg, The United States and the Far Eastern crisis of 1933–1938 (1964) ch 2
145. ^ Haruo Tohmatsu and H. P. Willmott, A Gathering Darkness: The Coming of War to the Far East and the Pacific (2004)
146. ^ Oliver Lindsay, The Battle for Hong Kong, 1941–1945: Hostage to Fortune (2009)
147. ^ Jon Davidann, "Citadels of Civilization: U.S. and Japanese Visions of World Order in the Interwar Period", in Richard Jensen, et al. eds., Trans-Pacific Relations: America, Europe, and Asia in the Twentieth Century (2003) pp 21–43
148. Ronald Spector
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149. ^ Aaron Moore, Constructing East Asia: Technology, Ideology, and Empire in Japan's Wartime Era, 1931–1945 (2013) pp 226–27
150. ^ Laszlo Sluimers, "The Japanese military and Indonesian independence", Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (1996) 27#1 pp 19–36
151. ^ Bob Hering, Soekarno: Founding Father of Indonesia, 1901–1945 (2003)
152. ISBN 9781603587433. Archived
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153. ^ Frederick W. Mote, Japanese-Sponsored Governments in China, 1937–1945 (1954)
154. ^ Prasenjit Duara, Sovereignty and Authenticity: Manchukuo and the East Asian Modern (2004)
155. ^ Gerald E. Bunker, Peace Conspiracy: Wang Ching-wei and the China War, 1937–41 (1972)
156. ^ David P. Barrett and Larry N. Shyu, eds. Chinese Collaboration with Japan, 1932–1945: The Limits of Accommodation (2001)
157. ^ Eric M Bergerud, Fire In The Sky: The Air War In The South Pacific (2001)
158. ^ Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the making of modern Japan (2001) pp. 487–32
159. ^ John Dower "Lessons from Iwo Jima". Perspectives (2007). 45 (6): 54–56. online Archived 2011-01-17 at the Wayback Machine
160. ^ Vehviläinen, Olli (2002). Finland in the Second World War. Palgrave-Macmillan.
161. ^ Henrik O. Lunde, Finland's War of Choice: The Troubled German-Finnish Alliance in World War II (2011)
162. ^ "Frontpage - Finland abroad". Greece. Archived from the original on 2017-09-29. Retrieved 2021-07-23.
163. ^ Kent Forster, "Finland's Foreign Policy 1940–1941: An Ongoing Historiographic Controversy", Scandinavian Studies (1979) 51#2 pp 109–123
164. ^ Max Jakobson, The Diplomacy of the Winter War: An Account of the Russo-Finnish War, 1939–1940 (1961)
165. ^ Mauno Jokipii. "Finland's Entrance into the Continuation War", Revue Internationale d'Histoire Militaire (1982), Issue 53, pp 85–103.
166. ^ Tuomo Polvinen, "The Great Powers and Finland 1941–1944", Revue Internationale d'Histoire Militaire (1985), Issue 62, pp 133–152.
167. ISBN 9780312311001. Archived
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168. ^ Stephen D. Kertesz, Diplomacy in a Whirlpool: Hungary Between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia (U of Notre Dame Press, 1953).
169. ^ Hungary: The Unwilling Satellite Archived 16 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine John F. Montgomery, Hungary: The Unwilling Satellite. Devin-Adair Company, New York, 1947. Reprint: Simon Publications, 2002.
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173. ^ U.S. government Country study: Romania Archived 2011-05-14 at the Wayback Machine, c. 1990. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
174. ^ Mark Axworthy, Cornel Scafeş and Cristian Crăciunoiu, Third Axis Fourth Ally: Romanian Armed Forces in the European War, 1941–1945, page 9
175. ^ Liliana Saiu, Great Powers & Rumania, 1944-1946: A Study of the Early Cold War Era (HIA Book Collection, 1992).
176. ^ Neville Wylie, European Neutrals and Non-Belligerents During the Second World War (2002).
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179. ^ Errol D. Jones, "World War II and Latin America", in Loyd Lee, ed. World War II in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, with General Sources: A Handbook of Literature and Research (1997) pp 415–37
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182. ^ Jürgen Müller, Nationalsozialismus in Lateinamerika: Die Auslandsorganisation der NSDAP in Argentinien, Brasilien, Chile und Mexiko, 1931–1945 (1997) 567pp.
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184. ^ Ronald C. Newton, The "Nazi Menace" in Argentina, 1931–1947 (Stanford U.P., 1992)
185. ^ Daniel Stahl, "Odessa und das 'Nazigold' in Südamerika: Mythen und ihre Bedeutungen' ["Odessa and "Nazi Gold" in South America: Myths and Their Meanings"] Jahrbuch fuer Geschichte Lateinamerikas (2011), Vol. 48, pp 333–360.
186. ^ Robert Fisk, In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality 1939–1945 (1996)
187. ^ William Gervase Clarence-Smith, "The Portuguese Empire and the 'Battle for Rubber' in the Second World War", Portuguese Studies Review (2011), 19#1 pp 177–196
188. ^ Douglas L. Wheeler, "The Price of Neutrality: Portugal, the Wolfram Question, and World War II", Luso-Brazilian Review (1986) 23#1 pp 107–127 and 23#2 pp 97–111
189. ^ Donald G. Stevens, "World War II Economic Warfare: The United States, Britain, and Portuguese Wolfram", Historian 61.3 (1999): 539–556.
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191. ^ William Howard Wriggins, Picking up the Pieces from Portugal to Palestine: Quaker Refugee Relief in World War II (2004).
192. ^ Michael Mazower, Hitler's Empire, Nazi rule in Occupied Europe (2009) pp. 114–5, 320
193. ^ Stanley G. Payne, Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II (2009) excerpt and text search Archived 2016-03-16 at the Wayback Machine
194. ^ John Gilmour, Sweden, the Swastika, and Stalin: The Swedish Experience in the Second World War (2011) pp 270–71
195. ^ Klaus Urner, Let's Swallow Switzerland: Hitler's Plans against the Swiss Confederation (2001)
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210. ^ Engel (2014)
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Further reading

• Bosworth, Richard, and Joseph Maiolo, eds. The Cambridge History of the Second World War: Volume 2, Politics and Ideology (Cambridge University Press, 2015) summary of Alliwed diplomacy on pp 301–323.
• Craig, Gordon A. "Diplomats and Diplomacy During the Second World War", in The Diplomats, 1939-1979 (Princeton University Press, 2019) pp. 11–37.
  doi:10.2307/j.ctv8pz9nc.6
• Dear, Ian C. B. and Michael Foot, eds. The Oxford Companion to World War II (2005); encyclopedic coverage by experts. excerpt; also published as The Oxford Companion to the Second World War
• Overy, Richard J. The Origins of the Second World War (3rd ed. 2008)
• Overy, Richard J. Blood and Ruins: The Last Imperial War, 1931-1945 (2022), a standard one-volume history of all aspects of WWII excerpt
• Polmar, Norman and Thomas B. Allen. World War II: The Encyclopedia of the War Years, 1941–1945 (1996; reprints have slightly different titles.)
• Rothwell, Victor. War Aims in the Second World War: The War Aims of the Key Belligerents 1939–1945 (2006)
• Steiner, Zara. The Triumph of the Dark: European International History 1933–1939 (Oxford History of Modern Europe) (2011) 1248pp; comprehensive coverage of Europe heading to war excerpt and text search
• Watt, Donald Cameron. How War Came: The Immediate Origins of the Second World War 1938–1939 (1990) highly detailed coverage; online
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (1994) comprehensive coverage of the war with emphasis on diplomacy excerpt and text search also complete text online
• Wheeler-Bennett, John. The Semblance Of Peace: The Political Settlement After The Second World War (1972) thorough diplomatic coverage 1939–1952
• Woodward, Llewelyn. "The Diplomatic History of the Second World War" in C. L. Mowat, ed. The New Cambridge Modern History: Vol. XII: The Shifting Balance of World Forces 1898–1945 (2nd ed. 1968) online free pp 798–818.

The Allies

Further information: Foreign policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration

• Barker, Elisabeth. Churchill & Eden at War (1979) 346p
• Beitzell, Robert. The uneasy alliance; America, Britain, and Russia, 1941-1943 (1972) online
• Beschloss, Michael. The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941–1945 (2002). online
• Burns, James. Roosevelt: the Soldier of Freedom (1970). online
• Butler, Susan. Roosevelt and Stalin: Portrait of a Partnership (2015) online
• Churchill, Winston. The Second World War (6 vol 1948)
• Charmley, John. Churchill's Grand Alliance: The Anglo-American Special Relationship 1940–57 (1996)
• Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945 (1995). online
• Dutton, David. Anthony Eden: A Life and Reputation (1997) Online free
• Feis, Herbert. Churchill Roosevelt Stalin: The War They Waged and the Peace They Sought: A Diplomatic History of World War II (1957), online by a senior official of the U.S. State Department
• Feis, Herbert. China Tangle: American Effort in China from Pearl Harbor to the Marshall Mission (1953) online
• Fenby, Jonathan. Alliance: The Inside Story of How Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill Won One War and Began Another (2015) excerpt
• Fenby, Jonathan. Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost (2005). online
• Gibson, Robert. Best of Enemies (2nd ed. 2011). Britain and France
• Glantz, Mary E. FDR and the Soviet Union: The President's Battles over Foreign Policy (2005)
• Langer, William and S. Everett Gleason. The Challenge to Isolation, 1937–1940 (1952); and The Undeclared War, 1940–1941 (1953) highly influential, wide-ranging two-volume semi-official American diplomatic history online
• Louis, William Roger; Imperialism at Bay: The United States and the Decolonization of the British Empire, 1941–1945 (1978)
• McNeill, William Hardy. America, Britain, & Russia: Their Co-Operation and Conflict, 1941–1946 (1953), 820pp; comprehensive overview
• May, Ernest R. Strange Victory: Hitler's Conquest of France (2000).
• Nasaw, David. The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (2012), US ambassador to Britain, 1937–40; pp 281–486
• Rasor, Eugene L. Winston S. Churchill, 1874–1965: A Comprehensive Historiography and Annotated Bibliography (2000) 712 pp.
• Reynolds, David. "The diplomacy of the Grand Alliance" in The Cambridge History of the Second World War: vol. 2 (2015) pp 276–300,
  doi:10.1017/CHO9781139524377.015
• Reynolds, David, ed. Allies at War: the Soviet, American and British Experience 1939–1945 (1994)
• Reynolds, David. From World War to Cold War: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the International History of the 1940s (2007)
• Roberts, Geoffrey. Stalin's Wars: From World War to Cold War, 1939–1953 (2006).
• Sainsbury, Keith. Turning Point: Roosevelt, Stalin, Churchill & Chiang-Kai-Shek, 1943: The Moscow, Cairo & Teheran Conferences (1985) 373pp online
• Smith, Bradley F. The War's Long Shadow: The Second World War and Its Aftermath: China, Russia, Britain, America (1986) online
• Smith, Gaddis. American Diplomacy During the Second World War, 1941-1945 (1965) online
• Taylor, Jay. The Generalissimo: Chiang Kai-shek and the Struggle for Modern China (2009).
• de Ven, Hans van, Diana Lary, Stephen MacKinnon, eds. Negotiating China's Destiny in World War II (Stanford University Press, 2014) 336 pp. online review
• Woods, Randall Bennett. Changing of the Guard: Anglo-American Relations, 1941–1946 (1990)
• Woodward, Llewellyn. British Foreign Policy in the Second World War (1962); online free; this is a summary of his 5-volume highly detailed history--online 5 volumes

Primary sources

• Maisky, Ivan. The Maisky Diaries: The Wartime Revelations of Stalin's Ambassador in London edited by Gabriel Gorodetsky, (Yale UP, 2016); highly revealing commentary 1934–43; excerpts; abridged from 3 volume Yale edition; online review
• Reynolds, David, and Vladimir Pechatnov, eds. The Kremlin Letters: Stalin's Wartime Correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt (2019)
• Stalin's Correspondence With Churchill Attlee Roosevelt and Truman 1941-45 (1958)

Governments in exile

• Auty, Phyllis and Richard Clogg, eds. British Policy towards Wartime Resistance in Yugoslavia and Greece (1975).
• Engel, David (2014). In the Shadow of Auschwitz: The Polish Government-in-exile and the Jews, 1939–1942. UNC Press Books.
  ISBN 9781469619576
  .
• Glees, Anthony. Exile Politics During the Second World War (1982)
• Lanicek, Jan, et al. Governments-in-Exile and the Jews during the Second World War (2013) excerpt and text search
• McGilvray, Evan. A Military Government in Exile: The Polish Government in Exile 1939–1945, A Study of Discontent (2012)
• Pabico, Rufino C. The Exiled Government: The Philippine Commonwealth in the United States During the Second World War (2006)
• Tendyra, Bernadeta. The Polish Government in Exile, 1939–45 (2013)
• Toynbee, Arnold, ed. Survey Of International Affairs: Hitler's Europe 1939–1946 (1954) online
• Yapou, Eliezer. Governments in Exile, 1939–1945: Leadership from London and Resistance at Home (2004) online, comprehensive coverage

Axis

• Bix, Herbert P. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (2001) excerpt and text search
• DiNardo, Richard L. "The dysfunctional coalition: The Axis Powers and the Eastern Front in World War II", The Journal of Military History (1996) 60#4 pp 711–730
• DiNardo, Richard L. Germany and the Axis Powers: From Coalition to Collapse (2005) excerpt and text search
• Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich at War (2010), a comprehensive history excerpt and text search
• Feis, Herbert. The Road to Pearl Harbor: The Coming of the War Between the United States and Japan (1950). classic history by senior American official. online
• Gigliotti, Simone. and Hilary Earl, eds. A Companion to the Holocaust (John Wiley & Sons, 2020).
• Gilbert, Martin. The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust (3rd ed. 2004). online
• Gilbert, Martin. The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War (1985) online
• Goda, Norman J. W. "The diplomacy of the Axis, 1940–1945" in The Cambridge History of The Second World War: vol. 2 (2015) pp 275– 300.
  doi:10.1017/CHO9781139524377.014
• Kertesz, Stephen D. Diplomacy in a Whirlpool: Hungary Between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia (U of Notre Dame Press, 1953).
• Kershaw, Ian. Hitler: 1936–1945 Nemesis (2001), 1168pp; excerpt and text search
• Knox, MacGregor. Hitler's Italian Allies: Royal Armed Forces, Fascist Regime, and the War of 1940–1943 (2000) online
• Leitz, Christian. Nazi Foreign Policy, 1933–1941: The Road to Global War (2004) 201pp
• Mallett, Robert. Mussolini and the Origins of the Second World War, 1933–1940 (2003) excerpt and text search
• Martin, Bernd. Japan and Germany in the Modern World (1995)
• Mazower, Mark. Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe (2009) excerpt and text search
• Mazower, Mark. Inside Hitler's Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–44 (2001).
• Nekrich, Aleksandr Moiseevich. Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet relations, 1922-1941 (Columbia University Press, 1997).
• Noakes, Jeremy and Geoffrey Pridham, eds. Nazism 1919–1945, vol. 3: Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination (1991), primary sources
• Sipos, Péter et al. "The Policy of the United States towards Hungary during the Second World War" Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum (1983) 29#1 pp 79–110 online.
• Thorne, Christopher G. The Issue of War: States, Societies, and the Coming of the Far Eastern Conflict of 1941–1945 (1985) sophisticated analysis of each major power facing Japan
• Tooze, Adam. The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (2008), 848pp excerpt and text search
• Toynbee, Arnold, ed. Survey Of International Affairs: Hitler's Europe 1939–1946 (1954) online; 760pp; Highly detailed coverage of Germany, Italy and conquered territories.
• Weinberg, Gerhard L. Hitler's Foreign Policy 1933–1939: The Road to World War II (2005)
• Wright, Jonathan. Germany and the Origins of the Second World War (2007) 223pp

Espionage

• Andrew, Christopher M. Defend the Realm: The Authorized History of MI5 (2009).
• Breuer, William B. The Secret War with Germany: Deception, Espionage, and Dirty Tricks, 1939–1945 (Presidio Press, 1988).
• Crowdy, Terry. Deceiving Hitler: Double Cross and Deception in World War II (Osprey, 2008).
• De Jong, Louis. The German Fifth Column in the Second World War (1953) covers activities in all major countries. online
• Drea, Edward J. MacArthur's ULTRA: Codebreaking and the War against Japan, 1942–1945 (1992).
• Haufler, Hervie. Codebreakers' Victory: How the Allied Cryptographers Won World War II (2014).
• Hinsley, F. H., et al. British Intelligence in the Second World War (6 vol. 1979).
• Jörgensen, Christer. Spying for the Fuhrer: Hitler's Espionage Machine (2014).
• Kahn, David. "The intelligence failure of Pearl Harbor", Foreign Affairs 70.5 (1991): 138–152. online
• Katz, Barry M. Foreign Intelligence: Research and Analysis in the Office of Strategic Services, 1942–1945 (1989). U.S.A.
• Lewin, Ronald. The American Magic: Codes, Ciphers, and the Defeat of Japan (1984).
• Paine, Lauran. German Military Intelligence in World War II: The Abwehr (1984).
• Persico, Joseph E. Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage (2001)
• Smith, Bradley F. The Shadow Warriors: OSS and the Origins of the CIA (1983) for U.S.A.
• Stephan, Robert W. Stalin's Secret War: Soviet Counterintelligence Against the Nazis, 1941–1945 (2004).
• Waller, Douglas. Wild Bill Donovan: The Spymaster Who Created the OSS and Modern American Espionage (2011).
• Wohlstetter, Roberta. Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision (1962) excerpt.

Historiography

• Clifford, J. Garry. "Both Ends of the Telescope: New Perspectives on FDR and American Entry into World War II," Diplomatic History 13#2 (1989) pp 213–30 online
• Doenecke, Justus D. "US Policy and the European War, 1939–1941." Diplomatic History 19.4 (1995): 669–698. online
• Lee, Loyd, ed. World War II in Europe, Africa, and the Americas, with General Sources: A Handbook of Literature and Research (1997) excerpt and text search
• Lee, Loyd, ed. World War II in Asia and the Pacific and the War's Aftermath, with General Themes: A Handbook of Literature and Research (1998) excerpt and text search
• Pederson, William D. ed. A Companion to Franklin D. Roosevelt (2011) pp 480–689, covers American diplomacy worldwide in WW II

External links

• Conferences of the Allied Grand Strategy at the Wayback Machine (archived May 16, 2008) by Steven Schoenherr
• World War II Timeline at the Wayback Machine (archived March 12, 2010) by Steven Schoenherr